Talk:The Poem of the Man-God

Excellent Work

I closely read this page (fixing minor grammatical errors as I went) and I found it to be balanced and informative in the best tradition of NPOV. My plaudits to the editors.

Estéban (talk)

Reliability of the Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal

@Arkenstrone: Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal is a MDPI journal which means that its not the sort of source we can use. What makes you think its reliable? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:33, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

MDPI used to be considered predetory, but no longer is. I think those two sources together are good, and Mattriciani has published on celestial mechanics so he knows what he is doing. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:15, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

It still seems to be considered predatory, also note that it has to be considered reliable... Not just not predatory. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:19, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Of course, seems to be is not the same as is. I seem to recall that at some point Wikipedia used to list MDPI as such, but that is no longer the case. And of course there is no "automatic death sentence" for all of MDPI journals, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. The issues are if the authors know what they are talking about (here they do) and if the subject is very complicated (here it is not) and if there has been any review in place (here it has). And it is confirmed by another journal, also MDPI, but obviously different reviewers. So it as had several reviews. So it is good. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 18:35, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

A MDPI walled garden of confirmation is not "good" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:57, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually that is a good and reliable statement for different reasons. First note that we assess reliability based on the likelihood that the statement by the authors may be in error, either because the authors did not know what they are talking about, or the problem is so complex that it may be inherently error prone. We also assess the likelihood that the reviewers in the sources may have missed that error. Here we have a very basic and simple statement that can be checked on a planetarium on a computer in "about an hour". I have tried it, anyone can try it to see how long it takes. What is the chance that a well educated person like Van Zandt made an eror doing that? Almost none. What is the chance that De Caro and Matricciani made the same error using a different planetarium? Almost zero. Note that the planetarium Van Zandt used was pre-internet and different from the one Matricciani used. What is the chance that 6 reviewers in 2 different journals all missed that eror, if one existed? Almost none. It would be very unlikely for all of these professionals to have made the same error. From another perspective, if there is an error in that statement, why did Bouflet not mention it? Bouflet wrote that he had been gathering all the criticisms of Valtorta for a while. If there had been even a hint of errors in Valtorta's astronomy Bouflet would have screamed about it. But the fact is that although people criticize Valtorta on various grounds from vanilla to theology, they know the astronomy has no problems. So given a statement that is easy to check in an hour, multiple authors using different systems, and the lack of any opposing sources, that is good and reliable statement. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 05:48, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

"First note that we assess reliability based on the likelihood that the statement by the authors may be in error" We do? Can you show me where it says that? We don't appear to be able to verify this information because it hasn't been published in a reliable source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:04, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

33 AD vs 34 AD

Horse Eye, if you want to argue against Valtorta's astronomy, questioning its consistency is not the way because it is internally consistent. But we can question the fact that today most scholars prefer the date 33 AD rather than 34 AD. 34 AD can not be formally rejected but most scholars like 33 AD because of the issues about Paul's letters.

That would be a "reasonable" item to add to the article, and can be sourced in its own right. But I do not know how to add that given that none of those sources mention Valtorta. Is there a policy that lets us add that without doing WP:OR? Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 12:09, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't want to argue for or against Valtorta's astronomy, thats not we are here for. I have not questioned its consistency. You have correctly identified that it would be OR. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:07, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I do wish we had a way to state that, but do not see one immediately. It would have been "reasonable" to let readers know that 33 AD is accepted by many more scholars, although 34 AD is not rejected in any formal way. Some people have said that Newton liked 34 because its date happened to fall on an English national feast day. Very few people discuss 34 AD because 33 has been more popular for long. But any way, C'est la vie. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:07, 3 August 2023 (UTC)